Memories in the Bank
by RomanaOrFred
Summary: Fleur Delacour's new job at Gringotts becomes a little more complicated than she expected when Bill Weasley is the one to show her the ropes to being a cursebreaker.
1. Chapter 1

The streets of London were bustling with Christmas shoppers. Lights hung from trees, and the windows were bursting with sparkling snowflakes and children's presents. There was an air of excitement. Toddlers were being tugged along by parents through the crowd (or, more often than not, the other way round), and groups of people gathered in front of displays, taking pictures.

But not one of the shoppers noticed when, into a small side alley along Charing Cross Road, a loud crack heralded the appearance of a young woman. Beautiful, with light blonde hair and a graceful walk, Fleur Delacour stepped from the alley into the street, elegant coat flapping behind her. She tucked her wand into a pocket and a strand of hair behind her ear.

She approached an area of the street, a little way along from the alley, which held a steady stream of unrelenting traffic. Nobody stopped outside the small pub to one side, nor did they so much as give it a glance.

The door swung open in front of her, and Fleur crossed the threshold into the Leaky Cauldron for the first time in her life. As she entered, a jet of light shot across the room and one of the tables turned into a chicken.

A second spell crossed her path, and the chicken proceeded to turn into a large umbrella with nothing more than a disgruntled 'cluck'. Spell after spell lit up the room, the table turning into a lobster, a giant ball of yarn, then a balloon, which proceeded to tie itself into... Fleur stared. That wasn't a shape for a children's party. The transfiguration stopped as the barman yelled "What have I told you about transfiguring the furniture for bets?! And- let's keep it PG, people." One of the two men at the bar grinned sheepishly by way of an apology as the other slid a handful of coins across to him.

She was used to the stares, so ignored the looks she received from the wizards at the bar, as well as from a group of wizards sat at a table and a witch sat with her friend. Ducking under a jet of light aimed at the statue and returning it to its original table state, she opened a door on the other side of the room and moved through it. Tapping a brick in the opposite wall with her wand, she stared with more than a little admiration as an archway formed.

The scene on the other side of the wall was nothing like she had expected. There were no modern shops as there were in the city, no towering buildings. The shop fronts here were quaint, more like those found in small villages back in France, but the streets were just as bustling as in the Muggle world. It wasn't surprising how little it resembled the larger city, given how odd the British wizards were about adopting Muggle technology and culture. Small children here were also being tugged along by parents. It reminded her of her own trips to the wizarding shops in France.

At the age of ten, she and her parents had taken a public portkey from a wizarding town near her home. The forest in which they landed was beautiful; the leaves on the magical trees were translucent and multi-coloured, making it seem as though the sun was shining through stained glass. Fairies flitted through the undergrowth, tugging on visitors' hair and clothing and taking anything they pried loose to build their nests from. Nestled in the branches of the trees were the shops. Ladders led up to places where you could buy schoolbooks, wands and broomsticks as well as more unusual wizarding supplies: magical diaries which could record your day at a single touch, stuffed animals that would respond affectionately to their owner just as real pets would, magical one-size-fits-all clothing which adjusted to the owner's body shape and size… Enchanted vines wrapped around the wizards and witches in the trees, ensuring that any fall would not be too disastrous. The shops all had open windows, and birds flitted in and out of them. Platforms led between the trees, with signposts carved into the bark and enchanted to different colours. Down on the ground there were streams with naiads draped on rocks, pulling anyone who leered at them into the stream for a thorough dunking.

Diagon Alley was beautiful, although in a very different way. She passed window after window advertising their winter supplies, with magical snow falling on top of merchandise, tiny Father Christmas figurines riding sledges across the displays and the warbles of Celestina Warbeck emanating from nearly every shop.

Fleur hurried up the steps to Gringotts, briefly admiring the elaborate façade before pausing at the huge carved doors. The hall inside was huge. Goblins sat at high desks, some holding quills and poring over parchment, others inspecting coins. At her entry, a group of witches and wizards talking to one side of the door glanced over.

One of them, an olive-skinned woman wearing a hijab decorated with magically drifting blossoms approached Fleur slightly apprehensively, blushing and stuttering a greeting.

"Um, are you… Miss Delacour?"

Fleur smiled, trying a reassuring approach while hiding her own nerves.

"I am," she said. "I 'ave been offered a job 'ere, and was told to come today to introduce myself and be… uh, shown ze ropes?"

The woman nodded, still blushing furiously. "I'm, um, I'm called Sara. I'm one of the curse-breakers here. I can… I can take you to his, um, Mr Gracktook's office?"

"Zat would be… very 'elpful. Thank you," said Fleur. She followed the witch across the bustling hall, towards a small wooden doorway at the back. The office behind it was small and tastefully decorated. A goblin sat at the table, weighing gold in an old-fashioned pan. He peered over a small pair of glasses at them as they entered.

"Mr Gracktook, this is Fleur Delacour. She's just got a job here."

The goblin nodded and Sara left, the door closing behind her. Fleur tried to calm her breathing as the goblin surveyed her.

"Fleur… Delacour." He took a piece of paper from one side of the desk and glanced over it. "Excellent grades, tri-wizard tournament, highest praise from Madame Maxime, wonderful references… yes, that all seems to be in order. I'll pair you up with one of the more experienced curse-breakers." He pulled out another piece of parchment from a pile. "Bill Weasley seems to be lacking a partner at the minute. I'll tell him to show you the ropes." He looked back up at her. "Curse-breakers work in pairs, due to their unusual ability to get themselves into trouble.

"Well, everything seems to be in order." He finished. He seemed unsurprised that Fleur had done nothing but stand silently. He grabbed one of a number of pipes attached to a wall and spoke into it, "Gornook, bring Weasley to my office," before turning back to Fleur.

"I suppose all that remains is, good luck."

The door opened behind Fleur, and as she turned she recognised one of the wizards who had been talking near the entrance. He was tall, with bright red hair. She looked up at him. The tips of his ears turned slightly pink as he introduced himself.

"Hi, I'm Bill Weasley. Sounds like I'm gonna be helping you along and showing you how everything works."

Fleur was uncomfortably aware of the fact that last time she had seen Bill, she had spent most of the time staring quite conspicuously at him. His dragon fang earring was still there. His hair was now down to his shoulders. She promptly decided that she regretted nothing about their last encounter and would, if uninterrupted, stare at him until her eyes watered. Nevertheless, she smiled widely at him, pushing her hair over her shoulder, and held out a hand to shake his outstretched one.

"Fleur Delacour. Eet is an honour to meet you again," she said. She followed him out of the door, thanking the goblin as she left. Bill strode over to the group from earlier and introduced her: "Everybody, this is Fleur Delacour. She'll be my partner. In, y'know, curse-breaking, that is. Fleur, this is Darcy," he pointed at a blonde witch with long hair and a pointed nose, "Jon," he pointed at a dark-skinned wizard, "Hugh," a pale-skinned, sneering wizard who glared at her upon introduction, "Taura," a woman with pale brown skin and slanted eyes, "And you've met Sara." Sara, blushing brightly again, waved awkwardly at Fleur. She smiled in turn at each of them.

"Pfft, another one hired for looks rather than brains, then," muttered the pale wizard.

Fleur turned to him. "Excusez-moi?" she said, arching an eyebrow at him.

"You heard me," he retorted. "I'm supposed to believe you're going to be any good at the job? You're just here 'cause of your pretty face."

"Hugh," said both Sara and Bill, in warning voices.

"Are we supposed to pretend differently? She's gonna be a liability. Gringotts wants a nice, attractive, dumb public face."

Fleur stepped towards him, drawing her wand from her robes as she did so. Everyone else drew back as, with a flick of her wand, a jet of rope, alight with flames, shot from the end of her wand and tied itself around his midriff, binding his arms to his sides. "Eef you ever speak to me or anyone else like zat again, I will make sure ze flames aren't as 'armless next time. And," she said, turning fiercely to the rest of the group, "eef any of you 'ave any doubts about me being able to do my job because of 'ow I look, I look forward to proving you wrong." She turned to Hugh and, with a jerk of her wand, the ropes released him, tripping him up as they did so, before vanishing. Her rage slowly died down as she realised she might have overreacted.

The group were staring at her in awe. Hugh picked himself up. He scowled at her, but seemed to think better than to say anything.

"Right," said Bill, trying to defuse the tension. "I think it's time I took you on a tour."

He pulled her towards the huge gates at the back of the hall, obviously trying to hide a grin.

"About time someone took him down a peg," he murmured to her. "Just because he's good at his job he seems to think he doesn't need manners."

Fleur nearly sighed with relief at that, and they moved through the gates and towards a cart waiting. He sat down first. She stared at it apprehensively. Heights had always terrified her.

"Is it… safe?"

"Oh yeah, we've only had, like, twelve people die in the last week." Bill responded, with a grin.

At her stare, he added "That was a joke. We'd get way too many complaints. One death a week, max. We get told off if we kill too many customers. We stick to the ones who complain."

She laughed and perched on the seat beside him.

"The exits are here, here, here and… here" said Bill, pointing at the huge drops each side of the cart.

As the cart set off, Bill pointed out the various features in the huge cave. He seemed to notice her discomfort with the height. As the cart jerked suddenly, her face went pale and she found herself gripping onto his arm for dear life. She blushed and released it as the cart began to slow down, but he wrapped an arm around her shoulders reassuringly. She was shaking, but managed to stutter an apology.

"Hey, it's fine. We've had all sorts on here. People who've fainted, people who've thrown up, people who've thrown up then fainted…"

The cart halted with an unnerving shudder.

Bill and Fleur exited the cart, and he proceeded to show her around some of the lower-security vaults. They walked downwards along narrow pathways towards the less accessible vaults, and into a huge cavern in which lay a sleeping dragon. Its breathing was slow and wheezing.

Fleur stared at the chains around its ankles, the bald patches where its scales had begun falling out and the scars and marks on its hindquarters.

"You keep zis creature for… for security? You torture it? Zat is…" she shook her head, unable to find the words in English. "I cannot believe… in zis day and age… you mistreat animals like zis?"

She was outraged to see that Bill was smiling at her. "Don't you _dare_ smile at me while zis poor creature lies zere waiting for its next… its next torture!"

"No, no," said Bill, hastily. "That's not… I was smiling because…well, that's exactly the reaction I have every time I'm here. I've been protesting against the use of dragons in security since I started. The old-fashioned pureblood families seem to like the idea, and the goblins aren't too receptive to new ideas, but a bunch of us got together and demanded that they not capture or breed any more for this. I've stopped them… uh, basically from hurting the dragons, too. They couldn't release the ones left, they… well, they were all pretty badly treated. They wouldn't survive. I got my brother, Charlie – he works with dragons in the wild – I brought him here to treat some of these ones, and he agreed. I know it doesn't make it right," he added, "but… soon there won't be any. They'll have to find other ways of securing the vaults. More humane ones."

She stared sadly at the dragon as they moved off into the vaults, Bill explaining the various security measures in place, charms, magical locks, duplication spells…

The tour lasted most of the day. She and Bill got on, she thought, exceptionally well. He recounted his first few jobs as a curse-breaker – the time he got kidnapped by skeletons that, according to him, seemed to be in pairs for the sole purpose of doing the tango together, the time he had failed to notice a charm that made a huge block of jelly attack him from the ceiling, the curse that caused his nose hair to grow so long and fast that it could have rivalled Dumbledore's beard. From the sounds of it, his first months on the job had been disaster after hilarious disaster. She, in turn, told a few stories from her time at Beauxbatons. The time she had been humming while walking along a corridor when a wood nymph, from the group who lived in the grounds and sang during their meal times, turned her hair into leaves for being out of tune. The… unfortunate incident when she thought she had been alone in her bedroom and had subsequently had to bribe the girl borrowing her scarf not to recount just what Fleur had been doing. The time in her first year when her attempt at a bat-bogey hex aimed at a girl making snide comments about Fleur's appearance missed and hit a teacher.

As they returned to the cart, he held out his hand for her to take as it sped off. She gripped it tightly. She managed a strained smile at him as the cart began to slow down, and nearly tripped over with relief as she clambered out. He caught her and led her carefully away from the cart.

They wandered back through the hall and to the entrance of the bank.

"Thank you very much for today, Bill. I… I look forward to working wiz you." She grinned at him. "Eef you ever require saving from a block of jelly in future, I shall bring a spoon and some ice cream." He laughed at that.

"I suppose… I'll see you tomorrow, then?" Bill said to her.

"I suppose so," she responded. She held out her hand and he shook it, smiling at the formality.

She turned and walked back along Diagon Alley, towards the Leaky Cauldron. The street was quieter now, the darkness broken by the candles in the windows illuminating the stock. She moved briskly, the chill embracing her as she passed back through the arch and into the welcome warmth of the bar.

Back inside the darkened room (devoid, this time, of Greek statues or lobsters) she requested a room for the night from the barkeeper, who introduced himself as Tom. Once inside her room, she shut the door, collapsed fully-clothed onto her bed, and dropped instantly into a deep, dreamless slumber.


	2. Chapter 2

Fleur tossed and turned in bed, covers becoming rucked up around her.

The sun was shining high in the sky, heat beating down on the sand where a 9-year-old Fleur lay, staring up at the sun. The book she had been struggling on with, which she was meant to finish before beginning at Beauxbatons at the end of the summer, lay next to her, forgotten. A few fluffy clouds floated through the sky above her. There was a breeze, smelling like fresh sea air. It threw tendrils of her hair around her face and made the waves form frothy crests. They reminded her of the selkies she and her parents had seen on holiday in Scotland, so long ago that she could barely remember them.

She could hear faint voices from her house, the garden of which was just a few metres from the sand. Her parents, she supposed, discussing food, making jokes, organising her first year at school. Her sister, just 2 years old, was playing in the waves. She toddled away as they approached her. She was meant to be watching Gabrielle paddling in the shallows, but both of them had grown up on the beach. Fleur was certain the beach held no dangers.

She paid them all no attention. Instead, she squinted up at the sky, focusing a little. Above her, the clouds began to move faster, moving together to form one big unidentifiable blob. Her fist clenched at her side as she concentrated hard. The cloud changed shape, slowly at first and then gathering speed. Parts of it elongated, others compressed. She caught the tendrils beginning to creep away with her magic, and formed… yes, two pairs of legs, a long elegant tail, a pair of ears. A cat shape, floating in the sky above Fleur. She focused still harder, and made little stripes of no cloud, to give it a tabby effect. Then, satisfied with her work, she relaxed, allowing the clouds to drift apart a little.

She repeated the process, eyes sometimes scrunching up with concentration as she urged the clouds into the form of a shark, a butterfly, a castle that looked like something out of the fairy tale books she had loved when she was younger…

She paused, knowing that her parents wouldn't be happy if they caught her using magic. They had known she wouldn't be able to resist, which was why they hadn't taken her to la ville dans les feuilles to order her wand yet. They had chosen the core for her years before, one of her grandmother's hairs. Her mother's wand used a hair from her own grandmother. Fleur's wand, like her mother's, would be handmade to order, although this wasn't unusual. Nearly all French children were taken to the wandmaker, measured for their dimensions, asked questions (some of which were incredibly probing), while the wandmaker decided on a core, a length and a wood for them. They then returned a fortnight or so later and collected their personalised wand. She had heard later that other countries used a different process, all the wands ready-made, but that sounded incredibly wasteful; what of the wands that suited nobody?

The voices from the house stopped quite abruptly, her parents probably moving into another room. Fleur looked up at the sudden silence, her gaze falling on the sea where her sister had been playing minutes before.

There was a blank expanse of water.

Fleur leapt to her feet, running towards it, eyes scanning the waves for movement. The beach was empty; the sea bore no sign of anybody.

Then suddenly heard Gabrielle's scream, saw a head, bobbing above the waves. It was far out to sea, too far for her feet to be on the ground. Fleur rushed into the waves, her magic not yet strong enough to part them completely but still pushing a wake through the water which she followed. Her own feet left the ground as she moved deeper, towards where the head of her sister was dipping below the waves for far too long…

She plunged her head under the surface, searching for Gabrielle, desperately waving her arms in front of her. All they found was empty water.

She opened her eyes wide, ignoring the stinging salt water flowing past them.

A movement out of the corner of her eye caused her to spin around in the water, her hair flowing past her face. Her sister. But something was wrong. She was moving far too fast. No two-year-old could move like that unassisted.

Fleur kicked her feet, propelling herself towards her sister. The look of panic on the toddler's face was clear even through the water. Wrapped around her ankle was a hand, ghostly green, almost translucent.

She reached Gabrielle and tore the hand away from her ankle. Using as much magic as she could muster and control, she sent a huge current forcing Gabrielle up to the surface and towards the beach. She tried to kick towards the surface and managed to break it for long enough to see that Gabrielle had reached the sand and was standing up, looking soggy but unscathed, and toddling onto the sand. She gasped with relief just as she felt the hand that had been around her sister's ankle close around her own and pull her legs from underneath her. She screamed, but only a stream of bubbles came from her mouth.

Salt water rushed between her lips, forcing its way down her throat as she began choking. The grindylow was pulling her deeper, into colder water, and she kicked hard against it, barely managing to fight it off as two more appeared next to it. They tugged at her limbs, pulled her by her hair, and all the time she couldn't breathe. The water became cold, dark, sapping her strength. She couldn't fight back, she had to give in. There was no point in fighting any more.

Suddenly the scene dissolved. No more grindylows, no more sea water.

Fleur was sitting by the side of the lake in Hogwarts, shaking at the mere proximity to the water. Holding the golden egg, tapping on it, moving it around, pressing it to her ear, trying to ignore the terror welling inside her at being so close to the water. Her hands gave a sudden massive tremor and she dropped the egg. It rolled from her lap, over the edge of the lake and into the water, where it fell open. She shook as she steeled herself to go and retrieve it.

The water was only knee deep, and she knew logically that she wouldn't be in any danger. But she still felt the sobs and fast breaths as she forced her legs to carry her to the egg. She was distracted as she heard the music coming from it. Beautiful voices, a wonderful melody, coming from underneath the water. Realising she would have to put her head under the water to hear it, Fleur nearly broke. Her entire body was trembling; she couldn't breathe as she placed one side of her face into the water so that one of her ears could listen to the song.

She was standing in the Beauxbatons carriage outside Hogwarts, facing Madame Maxime. She was explaining in a high-pitched, frightened voice that the second task would take place in the lake. She was breaking down, crying, screaming that she couldn't, that that was the one thing she could never do. Kneeling on the floor, remembering that day when she was eleven. Remembering her sister's hand slipping from hers, fighting for breath, fighting for life. The scene dissolved again.

She was gathering herself in her room in the carriage now, several days later, vowing to not let her terror overcome her. She knew how to survive underwater, had done everything she could at Beauxbatons to know how to survive the situation that terrified her. In her third year, for the first time since the incident on the beach, she had learned the bubble charm, forced herself to stand at the water's edge, made herself walk into the river in the grounds. Felt the water closing above her head. Panicked. Even with the bubble charm, she couldn't breathe. Her gasps for breath did nothing, even when air was in her lungs instead of water. Her friends dragged her out, only semi-conscious. She tried again, a year later, with the same result. Water terrified her. The thought of being underwater was unbearable.

And here she was, having to face her fear or be disqualified.

The scene vanished and was replaced with the moment, the exact second, the day before the second task, when she had realised that it was Gabrielle who had been taken. Her sister, taken underwater, just like last time. She had collapsed, tears running down her face. Madame Maxime had found her, two hours later, curled up in a corner, begging for it not to be true, begging to be allowed to drop out, for it to be anyone but her sister. Begging to not have to do it.

Madame Maxime had picked her up, no sympathy in her eyes this time as she told Fleur that Beauxbatons was counting on her, for her to overcome this 'silly little fear', to just get on with it, to not disappoint anyone.

So she did. She forced herself up in the morning, and nothing had ever been harder than putting on her brand-new, never-worn swimming costume and going to stand, shivering, by the lake. She kept her mind on one thing: saving her sister. Nothing else mattered if she could do that. She could feel the eyes of the audience on her and the other champions, and tried to control her breathing.

She cast the bubble charm with no problem. She had, after all, done it before. Diving in, she focused on the coldness of the water and trying to keep herself warm as she kicked inexpertly deeper into the lake.

She had been doing well at keeping her mind off what she was doing. She was heading to the deepest part of the lake, breath shaking only a little, until she passed over the plants at the bottom of the lake. She should have known better, should have known to stay away from them. The moment a webbed green hand found her ankle her mind went blank with terror. Logically she knew she could repel the grindylows, it was a simple enough charm, but she was back in the sea with her sister being taken from her and she could think of nothing except fear for herself and her sister and darkness began to swallow her whole again and she was falling, deeper and deeper into the darkness…

Fleur woke with a start. Her breathing was ragged and she could feel tears on her face. The nightmares wouldn't stop. She had tried charms, magical plants, dipped into superstitious nonsense in an attempt to stop reliving those moments of her life. Nothing had had any effect. She had hoped maybe moving to London and getting a job there would distract her enough, tire her out so much that she wouldn't have to endure them anymore. But it seemed not.


	3. Chapter 3

Fleur lay in bed as she felt for her wand and lit it, the brightness causing her to blink. She swung her legs out of bed.

After one night spent in the Leaky Cauldron, she had been able to move into her new flat. It was tiny, with grey walls and little furniture, but accommodation in London was incredibly expensive and she felt quite guilty about replicating Muggle money as she had been forced to do to pay the first month's rent. Thankfully Muggle money, unlike wizarding currency, didn't have anti-replication charms attached, but it still felt like a deception.

Looking around at the walls, she decided she may as well start brightening it up a little. Sleep certainly wasn't going to come easily after that nightmare. Fleur's father had been the one to do most of the housework while her mother worked for a French wizarding clothing designer. Fleur's father, as such, had been the one to teach her as many household and DIY charms as he could (while her mother brought home perfectly-fitting clothes for Fleur which changed colour according to her mood, necklaces with stones which changed according to what they were being worn with, and any number of accessories she had been designing which were both useful and beautiful).

With a wave of her wand and a murmured incantation, the off-white paint peeling off the walls vanished, to be replaced with a clean, unmarred cream colour. The floorboard which had tripped Fleur up as soon as she had come in was easy enough to fix, and soon the floor was flat.

One of the windows was cracked, but not for long. The grime coating the oven in the tiny kitchen area took two attempts at a scouring charm to fix, and she decided that the marble on the counters could do with being a nice shade of pale blue rather than a mucky brown. Colour changing spells were a little tougher, and required a fair amount of concentration to give the same colour all over, so Fleur had to pause for a moment. A few seconds later she had the colour to her liking, and stared up with dismay at the ceiling. For who knew what reason, the Muggle who had lived here before her had decided that a good way to decorate the ceiling would be by sticking piece after piece of chewing gum up there in neat little rows and then to throw pencils up at them until they started to stick. She sighed and went to fetch the rubbish bin. A brandish of her wand caused most of the pieces of gum to release the ceiling and fall into the bin and, to her disgust, into Fleur's hair.

The ceiling was, underneath the stickiness and graphite, far from its original white colour, moving into the beige area of the spectrum in parts. Another scouring charm and colour change spell cleared that up, and she looked around the main room, proud of her handiwork. While still looking very plain, the room now looked not only liveable but quite stylish, in a minimalistic way.

She lay back down on her bed, on top of the covers, and tried to relax. She tried to distract herself from her recent nightmare by thinking about her second day at work.

She had awoken refreshed from her dreamless sleep in the Leaky Cauldron. Getting out of the comfy, warm bed had been quite the effort. She'd managed it, after about quarter of an hour of muffled groaning into a pillow about the state of the world this early in the morning. By the time she had managed to get up she didn't have time to shower. Instead, she used a charm which she had invented during her last year at Beauxbatons.

That year had been non-stop exams, with students having breakdowns and crying almost constantly, no time for sleep, and constant revision to get good grades. During all of this, Fleur had come up with a number of useful spells, including one which had the effect of a strong Muggle cup of coffee in terms of waking students up, one which permitted parchment to read your notes aloud to the reader so she could listen to her notes when going to sleep, and one which cleaned the body and hair without the need for a shower. It was this last one which she used now.

Still yawning, she dressed in simple black trousers and a white shirt and went down to the bar and ordered breakfast. More specifically, she ordered a full English. Bacon, eggs, sausages, beans… well, she thought, when in Rome…

She headed off down Diagon Alley again, back up the steps to Gringotts. Once she had passed the doors, she spotted Sara by a wall and moved straight over to her.

"Hi, Fleur!" said Sara, blushing less than she had the previous day. Her hijab today was a lovely shade of turquoise. "Good night?"

"Yes, thank you," said Fleur. She hadn't dreamt, that night.

"I hear Taura, you remember her? Um, you met her yesterday briefly. She's been assigned a tomb they found in Norway. She went off earlier. They reckon there's gonna be all kinds of cursed stuff in there, they had to get past a lot of jinxes just to get in. There was one that made her hallucinate horrible monsters following her around, and they couldn't figure out how to stop it, so she got sent to St. Mungo's last night."

"St. Mungo's?" Fleur asked. "Sorry, I do not know of it."

"Oh, it's, sorry, it's the wizarding hospital. Hopefully she should be out soon, they can figure out how to cure most people there."

"Ah, thank you!" said Fleur. "Was the jinx able to get past her shield charm then? How often do people here end up in hospital because of the curses?"

"Oh, it's not that often. She said she let her shield charm down for a bit, which was a bit silly and totally against training."

"Zere was a girl in my year at Beauxbatons who jinxed a boy who told her girls couldn't do anything as well as boys," Fleur said. "She jinxed him to 'ave marshmallows pouring out of his nose. All the boys ended up drinking lots of hot chocolate," she said, with a slightly disgusted look on her face.

Sara laughed at that. "I was wondering," she said, stuttering slightly, "if you wanted to maybe grab a drink with me sometime? Or dinner? With me? Like," she took a deep breath, "um, a date?"

Fleur blinked at her, and smiled. "I am sorry," she said, "It's just…"

"Oh," said Sara, interrupting, "I totally understand. It's absolutely fine if you don't want to, I know a lot of women don't like… you know, other women, it's totally fine."

"It's not that, not that at all," said Fleur. She recalled a happy term or two spent with her girlfriend in Beauxbatons, before exams had made tempers too frayed to continue. "It's that…" she looked over at where Bill was standing a little way away, and Sara seemed to understand instantly.

"Ahh, yeah, I thought I saw you looking at him. I'm sorry."

She smiled at Fleur.

Bill jogged over to them both, grinning. "Hi," he said. "Any news on how Taura is doing?" he asked Sara.

She shook her head. "Still seeing killer pygmy puffs everywhere. They'll come up with something, though. The healers are great."

Bill turned to Fleur. "Right, today we're gonna start your training. Normally how we do that is we go to a place we've already plundered, so we know the risks, what kind of jinxes are in place, stuff like that. So where we're gonna go is a place I went during my training." He was speaking a bit fast for Fleur, and his voice was shaking as if from nerves, but she didn't want to ask him to slow down. After all, that was why she had asked for this job, to make her English better.

"There's this oak tree in England, called the Major Oak. It's quite famous among Muggles, it's supposed the place where an outlaw called Robin Hood and his gang called the Merry Men slept. They were famous for stealing from the rich to give to the poor.

"Anyway, a bunch of Muggle historians have claimed to disprove the idea about Robin Hood. They said during the time Robin Hood was alive, the tree would have been too young and small to sleep in. What they don't know, though, is that Robin Hood and his bunch of outlaws were wizards. The tree was enlarged with an undetectable expansion charm on the inside, so even then it would easily have been big enough to sleep in. They kept all their loot in there, too.

"So when we found it, back in the 1980s, they'd protected it before they died with all kinds of spells and things so wizards wouldn't steal their stuff.

"We're going to go there. The charms are still in place, so you'll get to learn a bit about how to spot them, and it's a big historic site too."

He was flushed by the end of this, having made a lot of eye contact with Fleur during his speech.

"Zat sounds wonderful!" exclaimed Fleur. "An outlaw who steals from the rich and gives to the poor? 'Ow romantic!"

"It's romantic until you get caught out by the spell which makes your toe nails come to life and start running all over the place," said Bill, a look of pained reminiscence on his face.

They bade goodbye to Sara, Fleur beaming at her as Sara moved to hug her tightly. "Watch out for the toenail thing," Sara whispered in Fleur's ear. "It's all fun and games until you can't find one of them. Keep a shield charm up as soon as you get in."

Stepping out into Diagon Alley, Bill offered his arm to Fleur. "Probably best we go sidealong, seeing as you don't know where it is." He blushed a bright red which clashed spectacularly with his hair as Fleur took his arm in her own and stepped close to him. They spun together on the spot, and with a loud 'pop!' they reappeared in a forest.

Bill maintained his hand on her arm for a little longer than strictly necessary as he led her through the forest into a clearing. In the clearing was a huge, imposing, oddly-shaped oak tree. Although the clearing was empty, it was clear from the well-trodden path around it that people often came here.

Bill pulled her to one side of the oak tree and, taking his wand out from his cloak, tapped a knothole on its side firmly in a rhythmic pattern. Then, drawing her to a large gap in the side of the trunk, he moved into it and vanished. Fleur, a little apprehensive at first, followed.


	4. Chapter 4

As soon as Fleur stepped into the crack, the darkness inside the trunk vanished, to be replaced by a large, open cavern. The ceiling was high and difficult to make out, but the light shining through it to the floor was green and dappled. There was only one room, it seemed, large and spacious and natural looking with walls made of bark.

A movement to Fleur's left made her turn, and just in time she remembered what Sara had said about curses. Whipping her wand from her trouser pocket she set up the fastest shield charm she had ever managed, non-verbal and with only the smallest flick of her wand. As she felt the protection surround her, she saw a flash of light fly past her. Just in time.

Bill was looking at her with barely-concealed admiration. "Nice shield charm," he said.

"Thank you," said Fleur. "In my fourth year at Beauxbatons zere was a trend of 'exing people in ze corridors. If you did not know 'ow to put up a shield charm quickly you would find your knees would suddenly be on ze wrong side of your legs."

Bill grinned at her. "Well that's an excellent start!" he said. "I guess you'll be keeping your toenails.

"Now, somewhere in here there's a hidden entrance into the next room. I don't know if you know anything about detecting hidden entrances?"

Fleur paused. She didn't know what constituted knowing anything about hidden entrances, but she held her wand in front of her and tried to think back to her preparation for the third task of the Triwizard Tournament. There had been something in one of the thick tomes she had studied late at night about detecting concealment charms.

"Specialis Revilio?" she whispered hesitantly, tapping a wall with her wand. Nothing happened. She blushed and, all too aware of Bill standing beside her watching her every move, desperately tried to recall the spell she had known had been underneath that one.

"Aditus Revilio!" she said, trying to put more confidence into the spell than she felt. The entrance behind them lit up bright blue and, to her surprise, so did an area of the wall to the right. There was a darker blue circle in the middle of the outline.

"Nice! Well done!" said Bill. "Finding out how to get in there's quite a bit more tricky. It took wizards about 5 years after finding this place to figure out what made that door open. When I say they tried everything, I _mean_ they tried everything. Spells, different coloured light, I think I heard about one wizard peeing on the wall…

Then someone thought 'Yeah, but what would have been around for Robin Hood? What would he have been able to do to open the wall?' and they found out that if you create a magical arrow and shoot it at the centre of the circle, this wall suddenly disappears."

Obediently, Fleur waved her wand, non-verbally creating an elegant silver arrow and shooting it at the target. A portion of the wall instantly disappeared, leading to a darker room.

The only light came from what appeared to be knotholes in the wooden walls. The floor was covered in gold. Treasure chests with golden medallions and chains spilling out lay on the floor, surrounded by jewellery and coins.

Fleur and Bill walked to the middle of the room, their footsteps seeming muted by the dusty floor. She crouched down and reached out a hand towards the treasure before something in her head clicked. This place had been discovered _years_ ago. If people could have taken the treasure, or if it was worth taking, it wouldn't be here. Bill was watching her attentively. She stood up slowly and backed away from it.

"Is it… is it cursed?" she asked.

"Some of it is, and pretty nastily too. But quite a lot of it just disappears if you touch it. We think it was probably a defence against anyone trying to steal things, that you'd either get cursed or find worthless stuff here. Pretty good, too. But well done on not touching anything."

He was looking at her a little strangely, and she couldn't help but notice how nicely the light fell on his face, his hair lighting up like copper.

She smiled nervously at him, the tension between them almost palpable.

Bill stepped towards her, blushing to the tips of his ears, not breaking eye contact. He reached out and took her slender hand in his own large, warm one.

Fleur was wide-eyed, staring up at him. Bill began to take another step, intending to move right in front of Fleur.

Unfortunately, his foot landed on a large goblet, which rolled away and sent him flying onto a pile of gold. Fleur jumped with shock as he let out a yelp of pain. Her wand in her hand, she sent a summoning spell towards him, aiming it so that he levitated off the pile of gold first. He fell on top of her, and she gently rolled him over, before levitating him more than a little unceremoniously into the main room, where there was better light. She laid him on the floor there, turning on to his back.

The curse, whatever it was, had burned right through his shirt, and onto the skin underneath. Bill seemed to be semi-conscious, making quiet groaning noises.

Fleur pointed her wand at the wound and murmered 'episky'. Nothing happened. She recalled that it was normally used for minor wounds, but it should have had _some_ effect. She tried a number of other healing spells, all of which she had tried and tested before, but still to no avail. Bill seemed to have lost consciousness now, and Fleur was struggling not to panic.

Clearly magic wasn't going to have an effect on these cursed wounds. She placed her wand just over the wound and whispered 'aguamenti'. She controlled the amount of water with her mind, very carefully keeping it to a cool trickle, and trying to keep her mind on anything cold she could to keep the jet of water cool.

She stroked Bill's hair as the water trickled off his back, whispering words of comfort to him as he lay there. Fleur thought of Saint Mungo's, which Sara had mentioned earlier that day, but she had no idea where it was, or how long it would take her to find out. In her panicky state she couldn't think of anyone to call on for help. She desperately tried to remember what she knew of Muggle healing. She needed a first aid kit, she knew that much. She had one back at her flat. Pulling Bill upright, she spun on the spot and Disapparated, appearing seconds later in her flat. She levitated Bill quickly onto the bed, making sure he could breathe, and rushed to get the first aid kit which had been one of the first and only purchases she had made for the flat (she had learned early at Beauxbatons that it was always useful to have bandages, plasters and numbing cream for when the healing spells were too advanced).

She ministered to the burns for half an hour longer, and was just beginning to apply a burn cream as Bill opened his eyes again.

"Fleur?" he said. "My back feels like a dragon ate curry and decided to use it as a toilet."

Fleur smiled at him, gently cupping his cheek and kissing it lightly. "I am glad you are well enough to make jokes. Now perhaps you can tell me 'ow I should take care of zis burn?"

Bill turned scarlet at the kiss on the cheek and it was only the pain that brought him back from his cheerful, if brief, daydream.

"Oh, right. The curse needs butter to break it. It used to be used as a remedy for burns, but wizarding folk didn't feel like they needed to know about it, so I guess Hood thought it would be quite a safe way to make sure only wizards were affected permanently."

Fleur hurried into the kitchen, grabbing butter from her fridge, and smeared it on Bill's exposed back as he flinched. "Oh God, they were right, they said it would hurt like hell for a while after the butter was on… it's like those magically enhanced chillies people went around handing out in my seventh year. Talk to me? Anything. Stupid stuff. Just… distract me? Please?"

Fleur racked her brains. She ended up telling him a fairytale, one she had heard as a child. "Le Prince Lutin," the story of a prince turned into an imp after a run-in with a fairy disguised as a grass snake that he saved. It was a long story, the way she had been told it, and her English was faltering in parts as she tried to find the right words. Bill filled some of them in, and she could see the muscles in his back (which she had been trying hard not to stare at) relax slowly as the remedy began to take effect.

After another half an hour or so, Bill had recovered enough to stand up.

"I'm so sorry it ended like that. I didn't mean- I mean, I'd hoped – I don't know if you want to-" he stuttered.

His shirt was badly burned and hanging off him in places.

"Um, I should probably get going." He said. "Sorry. Um, I'll see you…" he paused.

Fleur said "I think my next working day is on Wednesday?"

"In, um, three days, I guess, then?" he said. "I'll try taking you somewhere different and not messing it up so spectacularly."

Fleur hesitated, unsure of what to say. She had thought that earlier there had been a _moment_ between them, before it was ruined by the curse. But now she wasn't so sure, wasn't sure that she hadn't been seeing exactly what she hoped to see. So she said nothing as Bill disapparated from her room. Looking around the place, she had been slightly embarrassed at the state her flat was in. This was how she ended up, on her second night in London, waking up from the nightmare and beginning to make some improvements.


End file.
